


The Only Upside to Public Transportation

by JulyStorms



Series: Before Colors Broke into Shades [25]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike found himself packed onto a subway at eight-thirty in the morning on a Monday heading to his new job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Upside to Public Transportation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldkirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldkirk/gifts).



> Prompt: #24, literally bumping into each other AU. Mikenana. Requested by [PetrichorPoetry](http://petrichorpoetry.tumblr.com). Combined with the multiple requests I received a while back to write the same idea where the bumping into part happens via a crowded subway.
> 
> 24 is my favorite number and Mikenana is my OTP so I had to do it. Also Mike’s name is pronounced “mee-keh,” not the American nickname for Michael. Special super ultra thanks to [yourfatherisahamster](http://yourfatherisahamster.tumblr.com) for the [“Hey Mickey”](http://youtu.be/LSfnopkT37I) idea. I thought of it, too, but I hadn’t thought of Erwin trolling Mike with it. Also featuring shy!Mike. ;)

Mike hated the city.

He wasn’t used to any of it. He had grown up in a rural area and he had only moved to New York because Erwin had insisted that he could help Mike get a job.

“A really good job.” Erwin’s words.

What a friend.

But the smell of the city was overwhelming: car exhaust, food, way too many people…and the _noise_! It was exhausting.

Mike had no idea how Erwin could stand it, let alone _like_ it. It made Mike want to scream into his pillow at night and he hadn’t even been there a week.

It didn’t help that Mike had never been to a big city before in his entire life; his first few days in New York had been terrifying. He’d run into three different doorframes, had fumbled through figuring out how public transportation even began to work, had taken the wrong subway train, and had looked like a complete fool in front of an elevator of people when he didn’t press his floor getting on.

(He had gotten off ten floors too early, and then walked, too embarrassed halfway through the ride to push the proper floor.)

“I hate this place,” he’d said to Erwin as soon as he’d managed to find his former college roommate’s office on the seventy-third floor of a building that he didn’t even feel safe standing next to, let alone _in_.

“Well, try out the new job, see if you like it. If you don’t, you can always go back to good old Indiana, land of corn and more corn and no jobs.”

It was true but Mike hated that it was true.

“You were the one that wanted a history degree,” Erwin said.

As if Mike needed yet another reminder of the stupid useless degree he’d gotten.

“I should go to grad school,” he said, frowning.

Anything to get out of New York and back to a less crowded, less smelly place. In the process he’d be able to use his degree.

“You know getting a teaching position for history at a college anywhere is basically like winning the lottery, right?”

Mike had sighed. He almost didn’t care anymore.

He was 6’5’’ and he wasn’t scrawny. He couldn’t blend into the crowd of stately businessmen like Erwin could; all he did was stick out, and not only did he hate sticking out, he hated looking stupid, but that was just about all that had happened to him since getting to New York.

If he’d known beforehand that sometimes people stood crammed too close together on public transportation, he’d have taken a job doing anything in Indiana and then he’d have applied to grad schools to avoid coming to New York.

But he found himself packed onto a subway at eight-thirty in the morning on a Monday heading to his new job.

 _Packed_ meaning that everyone was too close—which wasn’t saying much. Mike’s personal bubble, he’d realized way too late in life, was unusually large. It would be nice if everyone would stay out of it.

The terrible thing about public transportation and about New York in general was that people were always cutting into it, brushing against him when they passed, touching his arm or shoulder when they had to squeeze around him; it was weird and he didn’t like it.

The worst part was that he knew he was acting like an idiot—being a complete child about the whole thing. He really needed a job, and Erwin was doing him a huge favor. Just because Nile had landed chief of police in their little nowhere, nobody Indiana town didn’t mean that Mike was going to be able to do anything with his life there.

(“Really, Mike. You have a _history_ degree. Fun while it lasted, but how’s it helping you, now? Maybe you can get a job at that new factory they built over in—“)

He’d give the job an honest try.

Was it ridiculous of him to hope that he hated it? If he hated it enough, he’d feel justified in packing right back up and going home to Indiana to crash on his parents’ couch while he applied to grad schools.

Yes, it was ridiculous. He was tired of being a drain on his parents and he was tired of not having a good job and he was tired of being too old to live with his parents but too broke to live on his own.

The fact that he was 6’5’’ made it even more ridiculous.

He needed a job that paid enough for him to live off of. He wanted one. And Erwin had found him one, and an apartment.

He just wished it had been located in a less…urban location.

But who was he to be picky, huh?

He had gotten a history degree.

People shuffled around on the subway. On and off. Filing in and out. Back and forth. When a spot closer to the corner opened up he couldn’t wait to take it; he felt less obvious there. Less stupid.

Too many people crowded on; everyone pushed closer. Mike just tried to not look at anyone.

Tried not to breathe, too. The last guy who had been standing next to him had probably consumed three cans of pork ‘n beans the night before.

People kept pushing each other in until he felt the inevitable crunch of someone being smashed against him. Half against his back, half against his side.

“Gah!” The sound of the other person, obviously disgruntled, reached his ears.

A hand touched his arm as they tried to right themselves.

They were still squished up against him like someone had covered them in glue and slapped them against him.

“Sorry,” the voice said again. “I can’t even begin to move.”

The voice was feminine. When he said, “It’s all right,” and was forced to breathe, he noticed that she smelled nice. Clean—kind of airy. The best thing he’d smelled since arriving in New York.

He wasn’t brave enough to turn his head to see what she looked like. Probably really pretty—glamorous or something.

A moment or two passed before people settled back and she was able to slightly disengage herself from his side/back.

He could hear her breathe a sigh of relief.

And he thought that was going to be the end of it. That she’d just stay quiet until her stop and then she’d get off and life would resume as it had for the first few days of his stay in New York: probably starting with him forgetting to duck when he left the train.

But she slid around so that she was in front of him, and in one smooth motion, with the cutest smile he’d ever seen on anyone, she held out her hand.

“I’m Nanaba,” she said. “It’s only fair to introduce myself after public transportation almost forced you to carry me piggy-back, right?”

He took her offered hand in the small space between them and gave her an awkward handshake—but a good one. Her grip was strong.

And she was pretty. She wasn’t dressed glamorously at all—just jeans and a nice shirt and boots.

He almost forgot to introduce himself until he was letting go of her hand. “I’m Mike,” he said. “Not Mickey or Mike-short-for-Michael.”

He hated explaining his name but if he didn’t, everyone would call him Mickey. He hated it. It was the bane of his existence.

And Erwin liked to use it to his advantage, calling him Mickey or some kind of horrible mashup of Mickey/Mike/Michael, like Mee-kehl or Mih-kehl. He’d done that since high school.

In college, Erwin had discovered the song _Hey Mickey_ , and that had been even worse. (Like the time Erwin had replaced all of the CDs in his car with 18 repeated tracks on every single one of _Hey Mickey_. Goddammit, Erwin.)

Nanaba just grinned. “Okay, Mike,” she said. “Is that right? Did I say it right?”

She had. Perfectly right. He almost wanted to hug her. “Yeah,” he said.

She practically beamed at him.

God, she was really pretty.

He’d never thought blonde women were a thing for him, maybe because his entire family and his best friend were all blonde, but he liked her hair. And her eyes were a startling shade of blue. And her nose was cute. And—

He was staring. Like a creep. He put a hand up to his beard and rubbed at it. A nervous habit. He had no idea what he was even doing. Why was this woman even talking to him?

“On your way to work?” she asked.

“Yes,” he managed after a moment. “First day.”

“I can tell you’re not from around here. I’m not either, though—I moved here from Idaho, actually.”

Well that was about a thousand times worse than Indiana, he thought. At least people knew where Indiana was on a map.

“Indiana,” he offered.

“Yeah? Nice. I’m on my way to class.”

The next thing he knew they were talking easily—Nanaba did most of the talking, and Mike interjected short answers and questions now and then. It was so effortless he almost wished he didn’t have to get off the subway.

It was incredibly naïve of him to think for even a second that a random woman he’d met entirely by chance on a subway ride was perfect (let alone perfect for _him_ ), but he’d been on so many amazingly awkward first dates that the experience almost felt like it couldn’t be real.

He’d be a real idiot if he didn’t try to get her phone number or something.

The problem was that Mike was too shy to ask something like that—not without good reason. What could he even say he wanted her number for?

 _Because you’re pretty and fascinating and I want to see you again_?

That sounded creepy to him, even in his own mind. Maybe it’d be flattering, but he was a stranger, even if he had introduced himself.

“My stop’s coming up,” she told him way too soon. “But I have an idea.”

He had no idea what she was talking about, but he said, “Okay,” and waited for her to explain herself.

“Since I invaded your personal space so intimately,” she said it with an amused roll of her eyes, which made him smile a little, “I think that I should definitely buy you coffee sometime. And y’know, show you around—or something. What do you think?”

He wanted to sound really good by saying something like, _“That sounds great,”_ but what ended up coming out of his mouth was,

“Yes.”

And it came too quickly.

She laughed, though, to his relief. Laughed like she thought it was a great response. At least he was amusing. He could listen to her laugh for a long time, probably. He wondered if she snorted when she found something unbearably funny.

“Okay, so,” she said, fumbling with her messenger bag before she managed to unzip part of it and pull out a phone. “I require your phone number. So I can locate you for coffee and stuff.”

He pulled out his own phone.

They exchanged numbers.

When she pushed past him to get off at her stop, and she had to touch him, he didn’t mind at all. He just blushed like a stupid teenage version of himself.

It was a good thing Erwin was nowhere in sight.

He stared down at his phone.

While he stared goofily at it, it buzzed. A text message from her. She had to have typed it as she walked away to send it so quickly.

_It was nice meeting u, Mike._

He sent a clumsy reply back. Something like, _same_ or _thank you_ probably; he forgot it almost as soon as he’d sent it.

He got off at his stop, remembered to duck so that he wouldn’t hit his head, and found his job without any difficulty at all.

By the end of the first day he’d texted Nanaba a few times and she’d sent back timely but not immediate replies.

Erwin called that night and the first thing he did was ask, “How do you like the job so far?”

“Eh.” It was a truthful response.

“So you’re going back to Indiana?”

“…Not yet.”

“Giving it a real go? What happened to change your mind, man?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure. Nothing. Nothing’s been known to change the minds of many people.” Erwin did that stupid little laugh he always did when he knew that someone was hiding something from him—something he would find out no matter what it took. “So what happened? Cute girl at the job?”

“…No.”

“Cute _guy_ at the job?”

“No.”

“You’ve suddenly decided that you like being smashed into random people on the subway?”

“…Erwin.”

It was a plea for his friend to shut up.

“Look, Mickey, I’m just trying to get a real response from you.”

“And if you call me that again I’m going to hang up.”

“Fine: Mike. What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you after Saturday.”

“You have a date.”

 Mike didn’t feel that he had to actually respond to that, so he didn’t.

“You have a _date_. You’ve only been in town like a week—and you always flail pathetically in front of cute girls. How did you manage that?” And then, before Mike could even consider replying, he said, sounding serious: “I want to meet her.”

“No.” Mike’s response was immediate.

“Why not?”

“Because I said no.”

“After your first date?”

“No.”

“Will you at least tell me her name.”

Mike hesitated at that, but there was no way that Erwin already knew her, so he said it after a too-long pause: “Nanaba.”

Erwin was silent for a long moment.

“It’s destiny. You both have weird names.”

Mike sighed, but Erwin kept going.

“We have Mickey and then a girl whose name sounds like part of the old _Batman_ television theme song. It’s perfect. Destiny.”

“Goodbye Erwin,” he said, and hung up on his friend, who had started to laugh.


End file.
